United Collections Bureau appears to me to be a legitimate, legal business, not scam artists. They are bill collectors.
On the other hand, directing and selling porn, selling drug paraphernalia, creating weapons of mass destruction under contract with the U.S. Military: these are all legitimate, legal business activities as well.
Just because what they do it protected by law does not make it ethical.in fact, what they do is often highly unethical and despicable.
Of course, the cretins who work there will state that they are simply trying to collect money that people owe, and that these people entered into contracts which they are not honoring. They would like to imagine that you have taken your credit card and had a fun spending spree, that the credit card company (say) has lost money on you, and that they are simply trying to recover what you have effectively stolen from the credit card company, namely your unpaid balance which has been sent off for collection by them. What these bill collectors do would not be dishonorable if that were the case. Say an acquaintance lent you $1000, and then you skipped town, didn't respond to his letters, etc. Eventually I think most people would agree that this acquaintance of yours would be in his rights if he tried some strong-arm tactics to recover some fraction of his $1000 outlay.
The fact is, however, that for the overwhelming vast majority of people who get behind in their credit cards, their unpaid balance is almost entirely fees, interest on interest, and interest on fees.in most cases, if you go back and look at all your purchases, add up the amount, then look at how much you have paid the credit card company and how much they claim you owe them and add up this amount, you will find that you will have been charged several times over for your initial purchase, even if you (for the benefit of the doubt, say) correct for inflation or the zero risk value for money over time. The net result may be that, say, the $100 you spent on a pair of shoes several years ago became $300, $250 of which you have paid, and now they are threatening legal action for the remaining $50.
Credit card companies prey on people who have a flaky history of paying their bills, and then blame them like the companies are somehow innocent victims. Please.
This is of course absurd. Can you imagine your buddy lending you $100, you pay him his $100 back AND another$150 as well, but then he says you owe him an additional $50 for fees and interest? No self-respecting person would behave that way. But credit card companies are not people. If they were, we would have to call them sociopaths. If they could legally get you to sign a contract that says that you agree to fees and interest rates ten times as high, they would do it. Like many other slimeballs, they hide under the protection of the Constitution, which protects your right to enter into contracts, meaning that if you want to sign some really ill-conceived contract with them where they charge you $300 for those $100 shoes, then that is your right.
IF you can afford it, if you get a call from these people, absolutely do not pick up the phone or talk to them at ALL, but simply pay of the entire balance with your credit card company immediately. Keep in mind that the bill collectors may assure you that they will not put bad info on your credit report if you just pay them, but they fail to tell you that your credit card company WILL. They may offer you a payment which is called "settlement in full", which sounds like, well, a settlement in full, but which will not be noted as such on your credit report because the "settlement in full" plan they offer is actually payment of some fraction of the original balance - in other words, you have settled in full with UCB as far as they are concerned, but you have not settled in full with your credit card company, so you still get a negative credit report stating that you did not pay off your full balance and they just gave up on you. So, PAY YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY IN FULL and do not deal with these UCB a#$holes.
If you can't do this, but you are unemployed, then your strategy changes.in this case, it is best if you make it look like you are trying to pay off your debt, but you don't have any money or income. Here, my understanding is that the courts look more favorably on somebody who is trying to work with his creditors but just can't, as opposed to somebody who has just stopped reading and responding to his mail and answering his phone. The UCB people will be very intimidating over the phone, so try to keep all communication with them in *written* form (FAXes or letters). This is better for you anyway, because that way they can't say one thing and then turn around later and say they didn't say it (something they have no qualms about doing whatsoever). Either way, GOOD LUCK.
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